I really don't understand the problem here. The guy should hang. Surely it is that simple. He was born of an Islamic family and, although I don't understand Islam, it seems clear that they are right in all things because they have a direct link to God or Allah through that chap Mohamed. His words are interpreted by the strictest and most devoted scholars and young Yousef Nadarkhani quite clearly chose the dark side (it's in his name for goodness sake: Na-DARK-hani) which is an anathema to Allah and he should be terminated. Doesn't that all make sense?

Well doesn't it?

When are these human beings going to understand that these major religions are nothing more than anaesthetics for people who can't deal with the reality of their existence. Like alcohol they get rid of the difficult issues and make life seem all rosy. It becomes quite clear through the rose tinted spectacles of religion that the stuff out there in the real world which upsets them is not meant to be there. It doesn't fit their desired interpretation of reality. Being egocentric, obviously the world out there (reality) needs to be changed to put things right. What sort of mind numbing stupidity is that. The problem with addictions, like alcoholism and religion, is that once people have run away from experiencing the real world they are less capable of meeting the next challenge.

The irony of Islam is that it is God's will. God made everything and this is the way he wants it. He wants different religions fighting each other and committing contradictory heinous crimes against each other in his name. Isn't that obvious too? To suggest the Iranian hierarchy, whoever they may be, should be merciful and apply a little clemency to the situation and should let him off with a lesser sentence is surely in the face of Allah. The suggestion is that mercy is a 'good' thing. How could it be if it resulted in the direct opposition of a benign God? So is it that the non-Muslims are begging the Muslims to just go along with their grubby immoral ways to appease them? It is so contradictory it beggars belief. What sort of a religion would it be if it just cow-towed to any pleading from the satanic side of things? What sort of a religion would it be if it didn't stand up for what it believed in?

The whole thing is a complete farce. The Iranians are playing games and trying to frighten people. They get two birds with one stone because they get to intimidate their population and they get all this fearful reaction from abroad. Religions are abusive. Please try to understand that. There is no more sense in "Christians" begging for clemency than in Iranians begging to be allowed to kill non-believers. I was brought up as a Christian and I completely get all the 'good' ideas touted by it. But people have got to rise above that oppressive control mechanism and realise that cow-towing to any religion is all part of supporting the oppression of control freaks over the rest of humanity. Religious freedom is an oxymoron. Get used to it!

And just before I go - They make me very angry. Both sides! The Iranian hierarchy are evidently ruthless oppressors and the people who oppose them are woolly minded. Killing someone because you don't like them is not acceptable. There is no point in beating about the bush (that one that had the two birds in it that Iran killed) and making feeble attempts to appease oppressors with tactical diplomacy. Try following that trite advice dished out by the anti-drug-abuse folk "Just say No!"

Iran: NO! In yer face NO! You are out of order and you are evil by your own definition! Thank you and good night.
(P.S. Yousef is a twit anyway for being a Christian.)

I was lying in bed at about 5:15 British Summer Time listening to the news on the BBC's Radio 4. "... a report shows that patients in the UK are four times more likely to die after an emergency operation in the UK than in the US". Unfortunately it got me thinking. So I tried to find this "report" on the internet. Eventually I found it by locating an article posted about 4 hours ago on the BBC News web site entitled "Emergency surgery patients lives at risk, say surgeons" by Dominic Hughes. The report by The Royal College of Surgeons of England and the department of Health to which this news article refers is available on the RCS website at http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/publications/docs/higher-risk-surgical-patient/. Specifically it says "... one study reported that risk-adjusted mortality rates were as much as four times higher in the UK than in the US." So it is a tenuous, if not false claim, by the BBC, that the RCS claims that this is true. But the essence of the message is clearly true. Lack of correct care results in more deaths.

So what do I care about this? Well I am getting really fed up living on this planet with what appears to be a moronic life form. Yes HUMANS! I was brought up with the view that our culture is somehow at the leading edge of all things good that humanity has achieved... but it has never quite felt like that. I live in someone else's attic. My father's as it happens. I am supposed to be grateful. But the real reason I live there in squalor is 'lack of care'. I call it a lack of love. It is care in the sense that they don't care. I am not looking for some 'care' that I expect someone to provide as if it costs them time energy and money; As if there is some service they are supposed to be providing but are failing to do so. No! What I mean is they "don't care"; They think they do, but they are mixing things up. And they are mixing things up in a way that I think is so destructive it is fit to be called evil. It is a kind of ignorance and an ignorance based on fear. These people are so screwed up by a judgemental, punitive, upbringing that they have lost the ability to be 'human' and to think for themselves. What happens is, they are compulsively defending themselves from any accusation that they are 'unkind', cruel', nasty, 'rude', lazy', 'inconsiderate' or any number of ridiculous negative constructs by moralistic judgemental adults in authority. They are so afraid that they might be 'blamed' and punished that they are emotionally compelled to 'act' in a way that can't be blamed. They are transfixed on themselves and what they experience as their own survival. They are not living their own life they are living up to a set of external values projected at them in their early years. They are 'conforming' and 'doing the right thing' according to their perceived cultural environment.

What this report from the RCS is saying is that when patients are cared for as individuals and respected as unique with their own set of conditions and responded to appropriately they have a better survival rate. What the report seems to fail to do is identify what the root cause of the problem is. In fact it goes one stage further and makes the mistake of recommending procedures which would (in theory alone) improve the well being of patients. But the procedures they recommend would be implemented in a paranoid environment and simply make the people carrying out the procedure MORE worried that they might not be getting it right.

The reason it bothers me particularly is because my health is declining seriously and I put it down to my the abusive upbringing. Given that I was emotionally tenderised like a piece of steak in my childhood I was then unduly vulnerable to the vagaries of an abusive culture. By a set of unfortunate circumstances I have ended up destitute and from there the situation gets worse. The consequences to my health are quite real and measurable. There are so many studies which show the relationship between anxiety and poor health that it beggars belief that the majority of health professionals don't get it. But the reason they don't get it is because they are desperate conformists.

To put it simply; People who care and do research because they are interested and concerned can see clearly that there is a problem and in many cases can identify actual physical correlates. I don't need to research this subject and list reams of studies, books (like The Biology of Love which I highly recommend) and research papers to illustrate my point; It is clear in the general culture that psychology, counselling, biology, neuroscience and all the leading edge research conclude that our emotional condition is "REAL" and has a direct bearing on our physical health. But people who are concerned to hold down a local respectable job like a doctor who earns a rather sickening salary for their 40 odd hours and who is far more concerned with what they look like than what they achieve, they cannot see the relationship because it is a risk to their security. They can't 'prove' it. What they are concerned to do is to 'prove' that they did the tests, they carried out the right procedure by the book, that they didn't do anything wrong. They are incapable of seeing what is staring them in the face; They need to actually care about their patients. They really do. Failing that they are just inhuman artefacts carrying out the bidding of a psychopathic and parasitic institution called the National Health Service for their own pathetic survival.

It should be made illegal to abuse children. What? "It is!" I hear you say? No, unfortunately it is not illegal . Extreme physical or sexual abuse which is not hidden well enough is illegal but the law is not working well on that account. But common or garden abuse like humiliating children in the classroom, blaming your own children for your own failings, labelling them as morally bad and destroying their lives if they don't conform to the standards you are terrified to counter are all serious abuse and are leading to the collapse of the human race.

It saddens me to hear this sort of report on the radio because from my perspective it sounds as if people care. It sounds as if some people out there realise that abusive, careless behaviour has real undesirable consequences. It sounds as if things might change. But I am fifty something and it feels as if they just get worse. But then I am living in a very hostile environment and in a cultural abyss somewhere in the backwaters of in Britain. So maybe somewhere out there it is getting better.

Sunday, 25 September 2011

If you have ever tried to link to your own Facebook account you may have encountered a small problem locating the url to your personal page. You can locate the unique url for your own home page on Facebook by clicking your username or avatar and the web address appears in the browser address bar.

You can personalise your Facebook url by assigning a unique username to it.

In trying to find out how to do this many people resort to searching Google with phrases like "how to get a facebook username", "how do i get my facebook url", "personalize your facebook url" or "facebook page url". They look for "custom facebook page" or "facebook address" and most of the results do not answer their question correctly.

This is how to personalise your Facebook web address.
Log in to your Facebook account and then open a new tab or browser and go to http://www.facebook.com/username/.

Simples!

You can locate this information through the Facebook help pages too.

Unfortunately if you name is John Smith the obvious username is probably taken and you will have to opt for something dreadful like johnsmith1632672560 which is about as bad as the original naked php parameter.

If you found this helpful (or not even) please comment with your suggestions as to what I should set my username as. I want samspruce but that has gone; So has toxicdrums. Options I consider possible are samspruce3toxicdrums1samanthaspruce, samualsprucesamthetree, samsprucethetree. But none are satisfactory. So which do you think is best or do you have any other ideas?

Saturday, 24 September 2011

Having created the rich aesthetic textures Sam applied them to a bunch of mugs. He was tempted to buy them himself but can't afford them. So, instead, he decided to offer then to the public in the hope that it enhances their life and brings in a little dosh to enhance his.

Keep your eye on this store as it might just be expanding its incredible range of objets d'art. And you wouldn't want to miss out. Take a look around by clicking one of the mugs below. You don't actually have to buy anything.

I decided to have a go at creating some abstract texture designs for Zazzle products. I am reluctant to describe how these images were made because it all starts with cling film. I have a thing about cling film. A love hate relationship I suppose. Maybe a fetish but now I am getting carried away.

I tried various ways to scan cling film on the scanner. I tried laying it flat, crumpling it to various degrees and wrapping things like blue tack with it. Having got some interesting base images I set about tampering with them using PainShop Pro and some of it's more interesting features.

Apart from the "Toxic Drums" mouse mat the other mats featured below are some of the results of my experimenting. What is good about Zazzle is that you can make post cards, greeting cards, posters, mugs and all sorts featuring the designs. I like mouse mats because they are relatively cheap as an art form and relatively incidental. But they add quality to your desktop and enhance your environment.

Please feel free to visit the store by clicking on the products above and even create your own product like a fridge magnet or an iPad case. I enjoy doing this so if I sell some I might be encouraged to produce more.